Final election results add 110K votes; Christie won by 86,700

While this year’s governor’s election wasn’t a rout, it also wasn’t terribly close. Final results certified this week show that Gov.-elect Chris Christie defeated Gov. Jon Corzine by around 86,700 votes, 0r 3.6 percentage points.

Every year, the unofficial results significantly underestimate the final tally. That’s to be expected; this year, unofficial results announced just after the election in at least five counties (Atlantic, Bergen, Camden, Hudson and Union) didn’t include any vote-by-mail numbers. And the first batch of numbers didn’t include provisional paper ballots cast in any county.

In all, the difference between the two sets of numbers added 110,649 votes, or 4.6% of all the votes cast. Christie’s margin had been around 106,000 in the original count, and as recently as Wednesday in North Brunswick, he was still talking about having won by that larger amount. His percentage margin dropped by 1 percentage point from its original 4.6 percentage points, as around 0.5% of the vote shifted from him to Corzine in the final tally.